Fibre optic cable is used in a wide variety of applications to carry data. Fibre optic cable often includes one or more optical fibres that may be individually wrapped in a plastic sheath and then collectively contained within a protective jacket. The use of fibre optic cable in data transmission applications has expanded significantly in recent decades as a result of advantages in transmission speeds and bandwidth provided by fibre cables.
However, unlike common electrical cables, connecting optical fibre cables presents challenges. Each optical fibre connection may contribute to unwanted signal attenuation (insertion loss) and reflection (return loss). Efforts to minimize these losses have produced a number of optical fibre connections, including the common “LC,” “SC” and “ST” connectors. Although widely adopted and continually refined, these fibre connectors remain poorly suited for use in applications with severe space limitations, where multiple fibre connections are required at the same point. Connectors exist with multiple fibre channels; however, during maintenance all of the fibre channels are broken, this may lead to dirt or contaminants on the fibre end faces. To ensure minimal losses each channel must then be carefully cleaned, drastically increasing the amount of time needed for maintenance, if, for example, only one channel needed maintenance. Accordingly, there is a need for an improved mechanism for connecting and rigidly securing multiple fibre optic cables in a small space envelope, but still being able to individually make and break each connection during servicing.